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The Mobile Database Race Heats Up

If you want to book a flight on Irish airline Ryanair using its mobile app, it now takes a lot less time. The reason: The old version of the app had to ping a server for straightforward information like seat maps or flight schedules, bogging searches down if the connection was slow.

The new version of the app runs faster by storing any information that doesn’t require frequent updates—like seatmaps—on the phone itself. It uses one of a number of new mobile databases designed to run on phones and other small computers, helping developers to write more apps that store and process more data on smartphones.